


All the Syllables of Loss

by Woldy



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Character of Color, F/F, Infidelity, POV Female Character, Sexual Tension, Weddings, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-28
Updated: 2009-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-05 09:05:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woldy/pseuds/Woldy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After all those shared hours and their reliance on one another, it was just a small step to the way Padma’s hand stroked her cheek and tentatively angled her head for a kiss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Syllables of Loss

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://daydreaminchic.livejournal.com/profile)[**daydreaminchic**](http://daydreaminchic.livejournal.com/) as part of [](http://community.livejournal.com/femmefest/profile)[**femmefest**](http://community.livejournal.com/femmefest/) . The Muggle club described in this fic is the wonderful [Club Kali](http://www.clubkali.com/). Thanks to [](http://sprawling-song.livejournal.com/profile)[**sprawling_song**](http://sprawling-song.livejournal.com/) for betaing this fic.

Hermione doesn’t recall the date when she decided to become a healer, but the events of that day are etched indelibly into her mind: their terrifying escape from the Ministry, the dragging weight of Yaxley, and then the blood welling from the wound on Ron’s arm. The Essence of Dittany helped, but it hadn’t been enough, not nearly enough, and the inadequacy was manifest every time she saw the ugly hollow scar on Ron’s bicep.

Looking back, it’s ironic that Ron’s injury is the reason that Hermione chose this career, because her work as a Healer is what threatens their relationship the most. St Mungo’s is where Hermione met _her_, you see. Actually, that statement isn’t strictly true, but it captures the reality far better than a bland account of their perfunctory meetings at Hogwarts.

“Something from the war?” Padma asked on their first day of training.

“Sorry, I don’t follow you.”

“Your reason for being here,” Padma said in explanation, “is it because of something that happened last year?”

“Oh,” Hermione said, and told her about it.

Padma had provided a clinical, horrifying description of what they dealt with at Hogwarts under the reign of Snape and the Carrows: the constant cuts and bruises, the broken bones, the soaring cases of shock, trauma and depression after suffering Cruciatus. It was no wonder that Madam Pomfrey had been overwhelmed by the scale and number of the injuries and had turned to a few of the older students for assistance. For the first time, it occurred to Hermione that those living under Voldemort’s puppet regime might have suffered worse than those fleeing from it.

“We only lost one person,” Padma said, with the forced calm of one whose emotions would overwhelm her if they were unleashed, and Hermione stared.

Someone had died. A student had died while they were on the run and searching for horcruxes, had died before the battle ever started, and this was the first she’d heard about it.

For more than a week after Voldemort’s defeat it has seemed that they did nothing but mourn and attend funerals, but nobody had mentioned this. Hermione wondered if the student’s name was on the Hogwarts memorial or if it would be forgotten by all except their friends and family. The terror of that year had touched everyone, whether they wanted to be involved in the conflict or not.

“We’ll make sure it never happens again,” Hermione said, and saw her resolve mirrored on Padma’s face.

The reason that Padma is such a threat to _Ron’n’Hermione_ \- which is how they are referred to by others, as if their very identities can be elided - is that Padma understands her.

Padma brought her cups of tea when Hermione was exhausted from trainee shifts at the hospital overnight, Padma’s arm warm and secure against her back. They were in training together for a whole year, both striving to be the best in the class but more concerned with shared excellence than with who came out on top.

The two of them qualified as healers on the same day and celebrated, drunk and almost giddy at the responsibility that being a Healer entailed. They escaped from the graduation party to a Muggle club and shook free the tension of exams and other people’s expectations, dancing for hours to music that Hermione found beautiful but unfamiliar. She remembers stumbling through the bhangra steps that Padma taught her and watching in awe as gorgeous Hindi drag queens slinked through intricate bollywood dance routines.

“You’ll have to come to the cinema with us,” Padma said, smiling, “my gran goes every Sunday. I can whisper a translation for you.”

Hermione turned her down on that offer, not out of any objection to Bollywood films, but because the thought of Padma whispering love songs into her ear in a dark movie theatre sent shivers through her.

On sunny days they shared their lunches in the hospital’s tiny rooftop garden or walked through London after work, strolling through the theatre district to Chinatown and Soho where a cacophony of bright signs promise _sex!sex!sex!_ or dim sum. They enjoy the latter together and if Hermione sometimes thinks of Padma in the context of the former then she doesn’t mention it.

Hermione stayed with her on the night that Padma lost her first patient, tearful and furious at the world for being a place where even magic couldn’t prevent a heart from stopping. They sat entwined on the couch in Padma’s flat, drinking tea and whisky by turns, until the sun rose and Hermione flooed home to find Ron asleep and oblivious.

After all those shared hours and their reliance on one another, it was just a small step to the way Padma’s hand stroked her cheek and tentatively angled her head for a kiss.

They are both rational women, professional scientists, and even now Hermione is shocked by how irrational this feels - how fierce her desire is and how little amenable to analysis. Hermione could describe this interaction in terms of arousal, heightened blood-flow and stimulus, but that doesn’t begin to capture how it felt when Padma pinned her to the wall of the staff bathroom, hands tangled in Hermione’s hair and their bodies pressed together from breasts to bellies to hips.

Hermione kissed Padma’s jaw and down her neck, tracing the line of her collarbone, and felt Padma’s breath hot against her ear.

“God,” Padma murmured, incoherent at this culmination of their lingering glances and minute touches, “Hermione.”

Hermione’s fingers had fumbled at the buttons of Padma’s shirt, pulling it open to the pale lace of her bra stretched over the dark swell of her breasts. Hermione cupped one trembling breast and ran her thumb over Padma’s nipple, feeling a sense of wonder in touching a nipple other than her own, in its velvet softness and pert response to her touch.

She recalls pushing the lace aside to see the dark circle of Padma’s nipple against skin the colour of chocolate, and ducking her head to suck it into her mouth. Padma arched, her hips pressing Hermione back against the wall, and they had rocked against each other as they touched and tasted for the first time.

Her relationship with Padma is a secret, stolen romance of absences and excuses. Their time together is heady and sweet, but those hours are never long enough and over time Hermione finds herself wishing that Ron would grow suspicious. She pushes the boundaries further, claiming non-existent extra shifts so that she can steal whole days with Padma or nights away from home, kissing in the hallways of the British Museum and then tumbling into bed. Despite the thin excuses and frequency of her absences, Ron never questions her pretence of “working late”.

Hermione has seen Padma squirming with laughter at the smears of chocolate sauce down her belly and Hermione’s thoroughness in licking it off. She has seen Padma wild and beautiful, head tipped back and fingers clenched in the bed-sheets as Hermione spreads her lips and tongues the delicate furl of her clitoris. Every time they make love she sees Padma’s vulnerability and hears the undertone of sadness in her voice when she asks, “can you stay?”

“Not tonight,” Hermione usually responds, wincing at the predictable inadequacy of her answer, “sorry. I’ll arrange to stay over another time, maybe in a couple of weeks. I’ll...see you at work.”

Padma is beautiful, of course, but that beauty is more about what one cannot see than what one can. Their sexuality might be hidden, but it is part of every interaction between them and Padma’s allure isn’t separable from her determination and brilliance, the searing honesty of her words, the bravery with which she dedicates herself to saving the life of every patient.

They see each other almost daily at St Mungo’s, eyes meeting across a ward or a corridor, perhaps exchanging a kiss in the staff break room. They both adopt a thin veneer of platonic behaviour in front of their co-workers, but Hermione isn’t sure that anyone is fooled by it. Then every night Hermione returns to the house she shares with Ron and describes her day to him through careful words and silences that add to the edifice of sugared lies, layer upon layer like a wedding cake.

Eventually Hermione starts to wonder whether she is cheating on Ron with Padma, or the reverse, and it sickens her a little that nobody else will think to ask this question. The answer of the outside world is implicit in the sparkling ring she wears on her left hand, the porcelain dress that hangs in her closet and the impractical cream shoes which still lie in their box. When the fateful day arrives, then Hermione will stand in front of everyone, and have to lie when she declares her love to be singular and unequivocal.

She’s been lying to everyone for months, but Hermione isn’t certain that she will be able to do it at her wedding. Will she promise Ron “I do” and exchange kisses, drink champagne from the same glass and waltz together? Or will she look up into the eyes of her parents, friends and _her_ \- the presence so constant the name need not be said - and feel her facade collapse? Perhaps her vows will quaver and hesitate, the falseness of her words echoing through the silent church as she inadvertently gives voice to all the syllables of loss.


End file.
